Everytime I read this thread the overclockers on other forums piss me off more and more. Its gotten even worse now, everyone is recommeneding at least a 450w power supply for an average (fairly high end) gaming system. I always say, just get a decent 300w and youll be fine and I get my head chewed off.

Everytime I read this thread the overclockers on other forums piss me off more and more. Its gotten even worse now, everyone is recommeneding at least a 450w power supply for an average (fairly high end) gaming system. I always say, just get a decent 300w and youll be fine and I get my head chewed off.

Yeah, it's funny. I've read a few posts lately at OCforums and the like that are saying that a TruePower 430 is very marginal and you should basically consider a 475W as the minimum! Thes are invariably just a basic OC'ed system with 1 or 2 HDD's and optical drives and a R9600-9800 vidcard. I don't even bother responding 'cause I know I'd get flamed out of existance.

My first post here & I gotta say - I'm more than a little surprised by what I learned & WHAT I THEN DID ! I was looking here to select a psu for a new system I'm building for a friend : XP2200+ on a MSI KT3 Ultra2 w/ 512MB pc2700 2.5-3-3-6 2T. Memory just came in from eBay , so I wanted to test it soon & my old systems are all SDRAM. Time to get a psu ... but which one ?

Well after I read this thread , especially in the middle , about really small psu's (HowLowCanYouGo?) , I took a look at my little Epia mini itx setup which lives in a homemade "cigar box" w/ plexi top & bottom . I found a tiny little MOREX 150 watt psu for it in Europe . It's rated [email protected] , [email protected] & [email protected] . There's a little 30GB IBM TravelStar in there too ... Hmmm , I wonder if there's any way this would fire up the MSI w/ the t'bred ? nah ...

DANG ! It works great !I used an old S3VirgeGX pci vid card. Added a floppy & a nic so I could load in the newest drivers & an optical wireless USB mouse to test for USB problems . None . So I figured I'd better see if I could overclock the wee out of it . No problem . Got it up to 160fsb , but the sandra scores(CPU best was 5926/2902) were starting to drop lower (???) & I was getting a little scared. Finally crashed @ 161 , so I backed it down to 156 & started stability testing after I played with fuzzy logic & checked my temps & volts . So here we are at 2106MHz @ 156fsb & fast mem settings - 37C idle & only in the 40's so far running hard . Stock cpu cooler . pcAlert sez 3.3v @3.28 , 5v @4.89 & 12v @12.06 , so the 5 volt is a tad low (would this be a problem?). But , hey , this is MAJOR horsepower on a HUNDRED AND FIFTYwatts !!!

& this thing is SOOO snappy next to my old 1gig TBird OC'd 1.4 & pouring out the heat , with it's giant 350 watt psu.

Specifically, the chart that is just above the text "S2FC with different wattage models." While I'm extremely hesitant to take such charts "to scale", the point is, the 460w model should hold it's "minimum speed / noise" through a much wider range of power draw than the 300W model "good enough for most anyone" that is talked about in this thread.

To be sure, you obviously can't just apply this methodology across different brands...a crappy 500W power supply might be insanely louder at modest power draw than "designed for quiet" 300W power supply at full load. But I feel OK given that Seasonic is only doing this particular comparison within its own brand line.

I bought the 460W Seasonic for extra "noise" cushion, not particularly power cusion. The rig (again, possibly Prescott) will likey either be folding or encoding or gaming almost 24/7. I want to give myself the best possible chance of the power supply not having to increase the fan (or having to increase case fan speed) because temp / power draw, and having a higher rating should accomplish this.

As an aside, this is one area that I'd like to see SPCR Power Supply reviews improve upon. If they could create their own sort of Fan RPM or noise level vs. power draw profile for the power supplies they test (at least 3 or 4 power draw levels), that would be a great help. It would also be difficult to do in a controlled way of course....but that's what makes the data valuable.

As an aside, this is one area that I'd like to see SPCR Power Supply reviews improve upon. If they could create their own sort of Fan RPM or noise level vs. power draw profile for the power supplies they test (at least 3 or 4 power draw levels), that would be a great help. It would also be difficult to do in a controlled way of course....but that's what makes the data valuable.

In fact, this is virtually impossible given time & resource constraints.

1) ALL thermal fan controllers in PSUs respond ONLY to temperature (all the PSUs I have seen and know about, anyway). Any manufacturers' info about fan speed vs. power are merely generalized extrapolations -- estimates of the temp:power relationship are used.

2) Hence the temp of the environment in which the PSU operates has a huge bearing on the results. The real variables for the temp seen by the PSU thermistor are:
- PSU load
- PSU AC/DC conversion efficiency
- PSU fan speed / temp algorithm
- Proximity / position of intake vents to CPU
- CPU heat
- CPU cooling system
- Total heat dissipation of other components in case
- Case airflow
- Ambient room temperature
- Position of moon and PSU engineer's astrological sign

Please be aware that it calculates a worst case scenario where all components are stressed to the max at the same time. This rarely if ever happens in real world, unless you do it purposefully.

Still, it's good for giving you some ballpark as to how much power you need for each PSU voltage rail. Yes, look at load on each rail, not just total wattage. Too little current on specific rails or overspecified PSUs are the two most common reasons (IMHO), why people recommend the over-the-top PSUs.

And the power supply isn't even hot. No, it's not my regular supply: my SS-400 A2 is on RMA to be traded for an A1, and I thought I'd give this a try so I could keep playing Halo It works! And the PowerUp isn't even very loud (though it has a constant-speed fan)

I do have to confess that the new power supply I'm considering is going to be at least 350W, if not 400W. I plan on upgrading the video card in the future, and I'd like some headroom in terms of power so that the PSU will run efficiently and quietly.

My first post here & I gotta say - I'm more than a little surprised by what I learned & WHAT I THEN DID ! I was looking here to select a psu for a new system I'm building for a friend : XP2200+ on a MSI KT3 Ultra2 w/ 512MB pc2700 2.5-3-3-6 2T. Memory just came in from eBay , so I wanted to test it soon & my old systems are all SDRAM. Time to get a psu ... but which one ?

Well after I read this thread , especially in the middle , about really small psu's (HowLowCanYouGo?) , I took a look at my little Epia mini itx setup which lives in a homemade "cigar box" w/ plexi top & bottom . I found a tiny little MOREX 150 watt psu for it in Europe . It's rated [email protected] , [email protected] & [email protected] . There's a little 30GB IBM TravelStar in there too ... Hmmm , I wonder if there's any way this would fire up the MSI w/ the t'bred ? nah ...

DANG ! It works great !I used an old S3VirgeGX pci vid card. Added a floppy & a nic so I could load in the newest drivers & an optical wireless USB mouse to test for USB problems . None . [snip] But , hey , this is MAJOR horsepower on a HUNDRED AND FIFTYwatts !!!

& this thing is SOOO snappy next to my old 1gig TBird OC'd 1.4 & pouring out the heat , with it's giant 350 watt psu.

Thanks for the reality check !

Welcome to SPRC!!! It is a learning experience for all of us -- I recently built my first Athlon 64 system:

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 0 guests

You cannot post new topics in this forumYou cannot reply to topics in this forumYou cannot edit your posts in this forumYou cannot delete your posts in this forumYou cannot post attachments in this forum